A small filly sat beside her mother. Her hooves were resting on her mother's foreleg. "What's it mean?"
The mother smiled thinly. "I can't say exactly. The wind whispers gently, but those are old voices, older even than me."
"No way!" cried the filly as if that simply were impossible. "You're the oldest there is."
The mother nudged the filly. "If you weren't my filly, I'd be sore at you. You shouldn't call a mare old."
"But you are..." She tilted her head. "Why shouldn't I say the truth?"
That brought a pause to the mother before she nodded. "It's like my gift. If I shared everything the wind whispered. If I repeated every tremble of the ground, ponies would get scared, or angry."
"Why?"
The mother raised her free hoof to her chin. "You know how mother has a gift?"
"How can I forget?" She hopped to her hooves. "You're super special! Everypony res... rez... respeckles you."
"Respects."
"That! Ponies come from far away looking for Miss Breezy Stone." The filly beamed proudly. "Why?"
Breezy shook her head slowly. "Once, there were many more ponies with my gift. They could feel, see, taste, smell... The world was alive for them, and they knew. They knew even things they didn't know."
The filly frowned at that. "If you don't know somethin', then you can't know it. You're not making sense momma."
Breezy leaned in and kissed her filly's cheek gently. "It didn't always make sense. I can hear when an angry wind is coming, but I don't always know what it will lead to. Things were different... My own grandmother told me this story, passed on from her grandmother."
The filly sat up and looked at Breezy, her attention fixed solidly.
"You know of the pegasi, whose magic lets them take flight with wings far too small for them and keeps them aloft on clouds too fluffy and made of nothing to support a pony. You know of unicorns, whose magic focuses in their head and can be channeled into potent spells with diligence and practice. But what do you know of earth ponies?"
The small pony frowned a little. "We're strong."
"Some of us, but not all of us, not even most of us." She tilted her head. "Would pegasi be known for flight if many could not fly?"
This confused the filly. "Oh... They can grow fruits and veggies!"
"Again, some of them." Breezy reached out and gently tapped her filly on the nose. "But they have something in common, that binds us together. We are all closer to the land. Once, we could all hear its many whispers. We were not farmers, or lifters. We were shamans and leaders. Pegasi could protect us from on high. Unicorns could perform clever magic and delicate work. We would lead the way."
The filly glanced left and right. "If Chief Cherry Blossom heard that, she'd get angry at you."
Breezy's smile turned a little sad. "I'm certain she would. You'll keep this a secret from her, I hope? Be a good filly."
"'Course momma... So why don't earth ponies hear the stuff no more?"
Breezy lifted an ear. "Unicorns decided they were smarter. Pegasi decided they were faster and braver. Earth ponies who heard the whispers less decided they were stronger, and that the whispers were not the land at all."
"What were they?"
The larger mare trailed a hoof across the ground gently. "They decided it was simply the murmur of troubled minds."
"What'd they do to them?"
Breezy looked up. She could hear the faint whisper and the echo of approaching hooves. She knew what was coming. "Daughter... It's time to go. Run to your little colt friend. Run and don't look back."
"W-what?"
"The time for questions is over." Breezy rose to her hooves. "Be a good filly, and don't listen to the whispers."
Breezy wasn't seen again. To appease angry 'spirits', she was removed, and the crop was saved. The town celebrated the return of their livelihood. Her daughter was watched like a hawk for any signs of her mother's deviation, but she never claimed to hear whispers, or show much sign for any talent besides cooking. That was good enough, and she was left alone.
The little filly changed her name when she became an adult. She became Cherry Pie. She claimed it was in deference to their wise chief. She lived well and plainly, and though she never spoke of the whispers that came for her, they did. Guided by invisible hooves, she avoided disaster for herself and her family.
She was not the last Pie, nay, she was the first of many, passing the torch onwards. They passed on the gift that came with the true gift of the earth pony clan. They could hear the planet. The wind, the tremble, the soft twitch of a rebellious limb. It was all ways of communing with the power behind the world. The story of their founding became lost to time, but the thread binding them together ran strongly despite it.
They were not the only family to hold it. Other earth ponies could feel the gentle stirrings of the world around them. Eccentric, mad, unhinged, or just stupid were many names given to such ponies. The insanity others claimed would always shine in their eyes. For many, it became a source of strength, for others, a source of bitterness. The thread bound them together, somehow stronger than even blood.
It was just the way it was meant to be, powerful and invisible.